In an episode of famous Pakistani satirist Anwar Maqsood’s popular television show ‘Loose Talk’, Moin Akhtar appeared as a teacher and asked a question that ‘Pul kisiye bante hai’? Anchor Anwar Maqsood gave many answers but Moin Akhtar was not satisfied and in the end he replied that ‘bridges are made to fall’! This was for Pakistan, but applies to India as well. In India too, bridges are made to fall. It may be that some fall less than Pakistan but bridges fall frequently in India too. Not every time it becomes big news because sometimes bridges collapse at times when there is no one above or below them. That is, no one gets killed in an accident. Under construction flyovers, railway overbridges, foot over bridges or the tracks being laid on the pillars of the metro collapse. A report was published in 2020 in an international journal ‘Structure and Infrastructure Engineering’. This report, published in the name ‘Analysis of Bridge Failure in India from 1977 to 2017’, said that in these 40 years in India, 2,130 bridges were not ready or fell in different stages of construction.
In fact, the bridge collapse becomes a big news in the media, when people die in such incidents or the incident is at a place where elections are about to be held. Remember the incident of Vivekananda flyover collapse in Kolkata in 2016. 24 people had lost their lives in that incident. The incident took place in March and elections were due in West Bengal in May. So, it became big news and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also targeted the state government regarding this. In Bengal in 2018 also a bridge collapsed in South Kolkata but there was no discussion about it as only four people died and there was no election. In the last 10-12 years, there were many major accidents of bridge collapse, in which people lost their lives. In 2011, a wooden bridge collapsed in Darjeeling, West Bengal, killing 32 people. A few days later, a footbridge collapsed in Arunachal Pradesh, killing 30 people. Most of the dead were children. Three years ago in 2019, a foot over bridge at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj railway terminus in Mumbai collapsed, killing six people. This bridge was audited only six months ago!
Think, if any lesson had been taken from these incidents, then there would have been such a big accident of bridge collapse in Morbi, Gujarat? A 136-year-old bridge built on the Machhu river in Morbi, Gujarat, broke down on the fourth day after being re-commissioned after repairs. Most of the 400 people present on the bridge fell into the river and around 140 people died. Children have the highest number of deaths. Who is responsible for such a horrific and painful accident? Are those people responsible for the accident, who have been arrested and against whom cases of culpable homicide have been registered? Nine small employees of the company which was given the contract to maintain the bridge have been arrested. It may be because of their greed that the accident happened as it is being told that the ticket clerk had given tickets to many times more people than the capacity. Despite this, the main responsibility does not fall on them. The main responsibility rests with the local administration. From District Collector to Municipal Officers and Engineers and other officers of Public Works Department become responsible and above that the responsibility of ‘Double Engine’ is made by the Government.
It was this hanging bridge, which was usually built in hilly and inaccessible areas. When this bridge was built in 1887 under the British Raj, it is being told that at one time 15 people were allowed on it and on the day the accident happened there were four hundred or more people on the bridge! Will only the ticket clerk be held responsible for this? The main job of the company named Areva, which was given the work of maintenance of the bridge, is to make small electronic items used in homes. Are the younger employees of the company responsible for awarding the contract to such a company? After six months of repairs, the company had commissioned the bridge without taking the fitness certificate as the next day of Diwali is the Gujarati New Year and a lot of people visit the area on that day. Will only small employees of the company be held responsible for this?
In fact, the local administration bears more responsibility than the company’s management or its middle and lower level employees. Everyone knew that the bridge is very old and weak, yet why was the contract given to an inexperienced company to maintain it? How did the bridge become operational without taking the fitness certificate from the municipality? How dare the company’s management to start it without a certificate? The bridge became operational on 25 October and the accident happened on 30 October, what were the local administration and police doing during this time? Did they not get information about the bridge being operational for five days or did they deliberately allow the bridge to be started illegally for some gain? Does this not reveal the complicity of the company maintaining the bridge and the local administration? Despite this, the blame has fallen on the small employees of the company! Simultaneously, an attempt to cover up the entire matter has also started. The immediate heat of the case has been quelled by the arrest of petty employees and the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of five people and now further investigation will continue in government style.
Obviously no lessons are learned from such accidents in India. Immediately after the accidents, compensation is announced from the Chief Minister’s and Prime Minister’s Relief Fund, some petty people are arrested and after that investigation starts, which in the end does not fix the accountability of anyone. There was a time, when Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned on the train accident and Madhavrao Scindia resigned on the plane crash. But now no one takes responsibility. Unless the real culprits of such accidents are punished, such accidents will not stop. Compensation is not a true tribute to those killed in the Morbi accident. If governments take a lesson from this, punish the real responsible people and ensure that all the bridges and such structures across the country are investigated, repaired where needed and even a single life is lost in such an accident. Will not be let go, it will be a true tribute to those killed in Morbi.
